Words by Pip Usher Photos by Roger Steffens/The Family Acid When Roger Steffens was drafted into the Vietnam War in 1967, two things happened. First, he purchased a camera in Saigon. And second, he was enlisted to work in psychological operations, an experience that included watching Nazi propaganda films. “That was one of the first nails in the coffin for my belief in America,” he remembers. Disillusioned by his experiences, camera now permanently in hand, Roger returned to the a very different man. Gone was the -born conservative Catholic and in his place was a countercultural liberal with a distrust of the Establishment and a fondness for dropping acid. It’s these experiences—captured in candid, sun-soaked photos taken in the forests of Mendocino and the medinas of Marrakech—that have propelled Roger and his fam- ily to sudden fame as The Family Acid, a freewheeling Californian clan whose lives have been immortalized on their Instagram account. Roger’s prolific career—which had already included iterations as an internationally renowned expert, a broadcaster and actor, and a touring poetry showman—has seen a new skill added: documenter of the counterculture. “None of us considered Dad’s photos to be a legacy when we started this project,” says daughter Kate, who curates their Instagram and manages Roger’s photo archives, which he estimates to be nearing the half-million mark. It was only after her brother Devon digitized more than 40,000 of Roger’s slides that she decided to share them online for friends and family to enjoy (“I’m so techno-igno that I don’t even own a cellphone,” says Roger, admitting he had no idea what Instagram was when Kate first suggested it).

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But as the project gained momentum, it became clear that Roger’s — photographs resonated with a wider range of people than they’d “My name is Today Louise Malone. Age: 20. Height: 5’3”. Hobbies: anticipated. The offspring of Vietnam veterans got in touch, anxious reading, judo, music, dope, Haight- to learn more about soldiers’ experiences in the war. So did those Ashbury, sewing, cooking, collecting whose own childhoods felt similar to the Steffens’ children. Then fairy-tale books,” says the woman at the center of “Revolution,” a there were many who simply craved the joyful freedom depicted 1968 film colorfully documenting in Roger’s unstaged photographs: the shaggy-haired hippies, the San Francisco’s hippie scene. wild festivals, and the haze of smoke wafting from fatly rolled joints. “Someone once said to me, “‘Everyone in your pictures is smiling’—as — if it were a fault,” says Roger, laughing incredulously at the memory. Go down the rabbit hole with the catalog “But my life was been filled with an awful lot of joy and with a tremen- for Hippie Modernism: The Struggle For Utopia, an exhibition examining dous number of people who enjoy laughter and who are creative in the countercultural revolution their own right.” through experimental art, radical Throughout it all, there has been the 43-year-long relationship architecture, and visionary design. between Roger and his wife Mary. Together since they met “on an acid trip in a pygmy forest in Mendocino under a total eclipse of the moon,” Roger credits Mary as the rock that has underpinned their uncon- ventional lifestyle. After relocating to Los Angeles in the 1970s, the pair have remained there ever since. Famous friends like and Fela Kuti passed The images are of people expanding through, as did a constant stream of visitors their consciousness and trying to dig who would stay for months at time. “When I was really little, an African musician named deeper into the secrets of the universe. Demola was living with us, and I learned how to clean my teeth with the licorice-flavored roots that he carried with him,” says Kate. “Lots of little stories like that come up when I think about my childhood.” As their chosen moniker indicates, drugs played a significant part in the Steffens’ lives. Kate recalls the moment when a drug education officer told her sixth grade class that they needed to know if their parents smoked pot. She rushed home, terrified to turn her parents in for something she hadn’t even realized was ”wrong” because, to the Steffen family, drugs were a source of joy and discovery. Many of these moments were captured on Roger’s camera. Today, they sit alongside portraits of his children and photos of the family gathered for the usual holiday meals on The Family Acid, a portrayal of a life that defies characterization. Only one common thread runs through them all: a loose-jointed, uninhibited sense of fun. “People see a nuclear family that’s filled with love,” says Roger. “The images are not of people freaking out or going crazy; they’re of people expand- ing their consciousness and trying to dig deeper into the secrets of the universe.”

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